The Material Culture Reader

Material culture has finally earned a central place within anthropology. This pioneering reader brings together for the first time seminal articles that have helped shape the anthropological study of material culture. With topics ranging from the anthropology of art to architecture, landscape, archaeology, consumption and heritage management, this key text reflects the breadth of material culture studies today. The authors, who discuss field sites as distant as Vanuatu, New Ireland, Trinidad and Soviet Russia, show how material culture provides a new lens for viewing the world around us and effectively bridges the gap between theory and artifact. Providing the first-ever synthesis of these ground-breaking essays in an easily accessible volume, this book will serve as a comprehensive introduction to the subject and a valuable reference guide for anyone interested in material culture, anthropology, art and museum studies.

Material culture has finally earned a central place within anthropology. Emerging from the pioneering work done at University College London, this reader brings together for the first time seminal articles that have helped shape the anthropological study of material culture. With topics ranging from the anthropology of art to architecture, landscape studies, archaeology, consumption studies and heritage management, this key text reflects the breadth of material culture studies today. The authors, who discuss field sites as distant as Vanuatu, New Ireland, Trinidad and Soviet Russia, show how material culture provides a new lens for viewing the world around us and effectively bridges the gap between theory and data. Providing the first-ever synthesis of these ground-breaking essays in an easily accessible volume, this book will serve as a comprehensive introduction to the subject and a valuable reference guide for anyone interested in material culture, anthropology, art and museum studies.

1 Introduction. Victor Buchli 2 Metaphor, Materiality and Interpretation Chris Tilley Introduction 'The Metaphorical Transformations of Wala Canoes' 3 The Anthropology of Art. Susanne Kchler Introduction 'Binding in the Pacific: Between Loops and Knots' 4 Visual Culture. Chris Pinney Introduction 'Photographic portraiture in Central India in the 1980s and 1990s' 5 Heritage and Cultural Property. Mike Rowlands Introduction 'The Power of Origins: Questions of Cultural Rights' 6 Landscape and Politics. Barbara Bender Introduction 'Contested Landscapes: Medieval to Present Day' 7 Memory and Conflict. Nicholas Saunders Introduction 'Bodies of Metal, Shells of Memory: "Trench" Art and the Great War Re-cycled' 8 Architecture and the Domestic Sphere. Victor Buchli Introduction 'Khrushchev, Modernism and the Fight against Petit-bourgeois Consciousness in the Soviet Home' 9 Consumption. Danny Miller Introduction 'Coca-Cola: a black sweet drink from Trinidad'

Victor Buchli is Lecturer at the Department of Anthropology, University College London.